


Reunited

by 20Zvorak17



Category: Criminal Minds, Higher Ground
Genre: Also a romance, Canon-typical material for Higher Ground, Canon-typical violence for Criminal Minds, F/M, Kidnapping, Murder, Serial Murder, Sort of a case-fic but that's incidental in truth, Unsub - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23758948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20Zvorak17/pseuds/20Zvorak17
Summary: JJ and Will don't work out after she's honest about her past, about Horizon--about Shelby Merrick. Two years later she is reunited with Scott, who's ex-wife is the fourth woman to go missing and turn up dead at Virginia Beach.What happens next?
Relationships: JJ/Scott
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

"Hello?" The desk sergeant looked up to see an attractive blonde man walk in, carrying a little girl on his hip. "My ex-wife was supposed to meet us for dinner--yesterday was our daughter's birthday--but she never showed up. I called and the officer I spoke to said I had to wait twenty-four hours. I've called everyone. I need to file a missing person's report." 

* * *

"Good morning, crime fighters!" Garcia often reminded JJ of Juliette, but only in the best of ways. "We've got a doozy. Ainsley Cook, single mother, custodial parent, reported missing after she never picked her kid up from school, found on the beach three days later. Eliza Bennings, new step-mom, reported missing by her husband when she never came home from work. Justine Willis, no children, though she and her partner were trying artificial insemination. She went grocery shopping and disappeared. Jessica Vickers, ex-husband Scott Barringer reported her missing after she missed their daughter's birthday and never called him back."

JJ felt like she couldn't breathe. After Horizon, she had changed her name and fled. It had meant leaving Scott and Jess, but it had also meant leaving Walt and her mother and the streets behind her.

"You old world and your new world are going to meet." She could hear Peter saying. They certainly were.

"There's something I have to tell you guys." She admits. 

"Tell us on the plane," Hotch agrees, "we're wheels up in fifteen."

* * *

She allowed Garcia to read them in before clearing her throat to take the floor. "I had a legal name change. Before I was Jennifer Jareau, I was Shelby Merrick. I'm not going to go into details, but I had a terrible step-father, I made all the wrong choices in response, and I ended up at a school for troubled kids. I mention it, because it might come up when we talk to Scott, who I met there."

"Should we be considering him a suspect?" Morgan wondered.

JJ responded with a vehement denial, "No! He was self-destructive, although Horizon really helped him pull it together, he graduated a year before me, and after he turned eighteen he took custody of my sister. He's a good man, not a serial killer."

She realized what she'd just said and curses herself for giving five profilers way too much information. Certainly, more than she had meant to. 

Jessica was the most recent missing redhead, so JJ and Rossi go there first. The door opened, and a tiny face appeared behind it; she couldn't have been more than seven.

"Ivy, what did I say about opening the door, huh?"

"Only open it if you're standing right there, or if Aunt Jess is the one at the door," She recited dutifully, "but the lady looks like Aunt Jess!"

"You know she's in New York, punky. Ah, go play, okay?" He replaced her in the doorway, catching eyes with JJ who feels like her heart is tattooing her chest.

"Shel?" He breathed.

"Hey, Scott." She managed, hoping he wouldn't slam the door. "I'm with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. This is Special Agent Rossi. Can we come in?"

* * *

She grabbed glasses of water, instinctively adding two ice cubes to Scott's. "This is about Jessica." He offers a thankful smile as she hands his glass over, surprise overtaking his features when he notices the ice.

"Tell us about when you realized she was missing." Rossi encouraged.

"Well, I have custody of Ivy because Jessica....struggles. I also invite Jessica to birthdays, games, recitals, things like that and Jessica always shows. Hasn't missed a single one, ever, so when she didn't show up at the restaurant, I called her. She didn't answer, and I thought maybe she was going to be at the party, but Auggie picked up Ana at 8:00 and Jessica still wasn't here. I asked Jess to watch Ivy and went over to the apartment in case she was unconscious," he states with a significant look, "and she wasn't there, I even let myself in with her spare key in case she was worse than unconscious. I called her usual haunts, and then I called the police. They told me she wasn't missing until no one had heard from her for twenty-four hours and once that rolled around, I went straight to the station so I could watch them file the report."

"Why would they not have?" Rossi queried.

"Because...she's gone 'missing' before, okay. The reason we're divorced, the reason she don't have any custody of Ivy is because she's a drug addict who won't go to recovery. With my history, there can't be drugs in this house, and she definitely can't have them around my daughter. But the cops have found her on too many den raids and I'm not sure they still really think she's a victim here."

"Do you?"

"I think three other red-heads from this city who haven't followed traditional marriage beliefs are already missing, so yeah."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Barringer. We'll let you be."

"Actually, Rossi, I'd like to stay for a bit."

The Italian agreed, and when the door shut, for the first time in nearly ten years, Shelby Merrick hugged Scott Barringer. 

It was exactly the way she remembered.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

“You left without saying goodbye. Again,” he said, pulling away. 

  
“Between you and Peter I knew that Jess was safe.”

”Yeah, but _I_ needed you.”

”You? You’re the strongest person I know. But me? I couldn’t be her and have all that.”

”You were strong, too.”

”Maybe that’s what I’m mad about. We were kids, Scott, what we needed was safety.”

”Yeah, but we didn’t get it, did we, Shel? Cuz we were abused by people we should’ve been able to trust, and not protected by the people supposed to protect us. We lost our coping mechanisms at Horizon. And, yeah, they were bad, but they were easy, and then we had to face things. So we got strength instead. Changing your name doesn’t change that.”   
  
“I wanted it to.”

”I know.” 

* * *

“Why has the unsub stopped?” Morgan mused.

  
”We speculated that these women were all surrogates, but what if it stopped because the unsub has completed their endgame. One of them, likely Jessica, was the actual target of rage.” Reid answered.

”If that’s the case, it makes our job harder.” Hotch said. 

* * *

"So, I'm surprised you married somebody with drug issues."

"Oh, really? Thought I was gonna marry you, didn't I?" They were both silent. "That wasn't fair. I'm sorry." He took a deep, bracing breath. "Blew out my knee playing college ball. They had to operate and they gave me oxy. I lasted a a week and a half before relapsing. Nothing like meth this time, but heroine, pills. That's how I met Jessica. Then she got pregnant and we got clean. We got married because, I don't know, it seemed like the right thing to do. After Ivy was born Jessica started doing drugs again. She wasn't breast-feeding and, at first, it was just pot, then when Ivy was six months old, I caught her snorting cocaine. Gave her an ultimatum; she left."

"So what is it that you do these days?" She redirected.

"I'm a social worker," he told her and she understood. 

"Daddy?" Came a voice from the stairs.

"What's up kiddo?"

"Why did Mommy miss my birthday?" 

"Do you remember when Grandma had a heart attack and she had to go wait for a new turn on Earth and we couldn't see her because her body went to sleep?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mommy's body got put to sleep, and her soul is waiting in line with Grandma's now."

"Oh," Ivy whispered. "Can I have a glass of water?"

"Sure, punky," he replies in kid, putting her on his hip. Maybe she is getting a bit big for it, seven years old now, but she doesn't have grandparents now that his Mom's gone, and hers is gone, too. He doesn't ever want her to feel unloved or unsupported. 

"I always knew he'd be a good Dad," JJ says quietly to herself, and wishes more than ever that she hadn't left him behind her when she fled.


	3. Chapter 3

"If Jessica was the intended victim, why was there no overkill, nothing to suggest it was personal?"

"We don't declare anything serial until there's been three murders, right?" Reid said, making the leap with his incredible brain. "What if our unsub only wanted to kill Jessica, but they didn't want anyone looking too closely at her murder in particular? No overkill, no indication she knew the killer--what if this is about Scott?"

"We need to dig into Barringer's life." Hotch ordered.

JJ wondered. Could it be?

* * *

The intruder picked the lock, which creaked as it it swung open. The intruder flinched, unsure how the sleeping people in the house would react to the noise. Tiptoeing up the steps proved to be a challenge, littered as they were with small, sparkly shoes, various children's toys and the laundry basket which sat obnoxiously at the top. The next door opened silently, and though it was the wrong door, the interloper allowed a moment of contemplation. The little girl resembled nobody so much as her father, and the strawberry blond curls really were precious. The door closed as light feet turned the other way. _Jackpot._

"Scotty. You up?"

Scott hadn't had this nightmare in years.

* * *

"Jayje," Garcia asked on speaker, "would his ex stepmother be visiting him?"

"Uh, no."

"She came in on a flight three months ago, just before the first murder."

"You're sure JJ?" Hotch questioned, not prepared to break into somebody's house, wake a sleeping kid and be wrong about it.

"She's the reason he was at Horizon. She abused him."

"If she believed that she harbored romantic feelings for him, that could cause her to kill the mother of his child." Morgan offered.

"But what's the stressor?" Emily pointed out the obvious missing information. 

"Her dad died a week before her flight." Garcia indicated, gesturing to her one of her screens, though the profilers couldn't see it.

"She thinks he's the only person left in the world she loves. If he rejects her..." Rossi trailed off. "Call him JJ."

She followed directions, heaving a sigh of relief when the phone picked up. "Scott..."

"Scotty can't come to the phone right now," a voice simpered, and JJ recognized it. Even now, that sweet tone inspired a visceral reaction.

"Is he okay?" She tried to ask but the dial-tone was already beeping. She turned to her team. "She's there."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this folks!

Scott was trying to wake from his nightmare when the bed dipped, and he realized he'd not been asleep in the first place. Elaine was here. He sprung out of the bed. He made a discreet attempt to grab his cell phone off the night stand, but it wasn't there and a glance at Elaine showed that she had appropriated it.

"What are you doing here?" He inquired coldly.

"I missed you," she offered, feigning offense. 

"Well, I haven't missed you." There was that venom she remembered.

"Oh, now. You loved me once."

"Yeah," he admits, "because I was a dumb teenager. You were an adult. And you didn't love me, Elaine, okay? There's nothing to discuss."

"You have no idea what I've done so we could be together!" Her face flashed with something terrifying, and his mind whirred with possibilities. "Who I've had to get out of the way to there'd be room for us, for this!" _No,_ he thinks, _Jessica can't be dead because of me._

His phone rang and if Elaine were thinking straight she wouldn't have done what she did next. She answered it, giving away her location to the FBI, foiling her own plan--whatever it may be--if Scott could just keep her distracted long enough. She shut the phone, looking at him, and he swallowed the bile rising up. 

"You did all of that for me?" He asked, as though flattered, and it worked.

"Of course I did, Scotty," she responded eagerly and he felt his stomach twist. She'd only gotten more messed up in the last decade.

"But why? I have a daughter and..."

"A daughter who needs a mother," Elaine pointed out, like she hadn't been the one to kill Ivy's mother, like the last person she'd been a stepmom to wasn't still suffering for the experience. Still, he persevered, "You would do that?" Red and blue lights flashed in the window behind her and he knew he had to distract her before she could notice. Screaming inwardly, he kissed her, only pushing her away when the door crashed open. He fell to his knees as they handcuffed her, gagging, sure he needed to vomit.

"Daddy? What's happening?" Came a scared, little voice, and he opened his arms for her, taking as much comfort from the hug as his daughter was.

"Nothing, kiddo. It's over." He promised.

* * *

"Maybe we could try again." He suggested.

"I'm not who I used to be."

"You are, in all the ways that matter, exactly who I fell in love with."

"But in a lot of ways, I'm a different person altogether."

"So am I. People change with time, Shel."

"That's the other thing. I'm JJ now, or Jennifer. It's who I want to be."

He considered her for a second. "Once, long ago, after I screwed up, Shelby Merrick told me we'd have to start from the beginning again," he said, brushing her hair out of her face, "and Jenny, I would still do that for you. That offer was not contingent on you never making a mistake. Loving you, wanting you, is not about your name. This, you, it's the same soul I fell in love with."

He kissed her, and as it always had, it made her forget about everything. She should've known, really-he'd been the first guy to make her feel beautiful, loved and happy, and she should've hung onto him with all that she had.

Because, yeah. He was still the one. 


End file.
